A meandering blog about things affecting me and my life in Bellingham, Washington.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Taxing

I think I got all my tax commitments taken care of in time. After dealing with the bumbling IRS idiot on the phone, it was refreshing to walk into the office downtown and recognize people that I've dealt with before at the IRS versus the angry person in some faraway place. I would probably be angry and miserable too if I wasn't in Bellingham.

But it was interesting to see people protesting the with the anti-tax tea party. I wonder how many drove there and realize how heavily subsidized oil is in this country by the US gvernment. Or their tax dollars. Or the military expenditures that eat up ever dollar we earn in wages from all of January and most of February. There really is no hope for the debt in this country, as it pretty much doubled from 2000 through present - from around $5.5 trillion to today's debt of around $11.1 trillion. And most of this for two wars that probably won't prove to be overwhelmingly successful.

I heard the majority of them were older. How interesting that the generation that will strip the remainder of what we once knew of as pensions, social safety nets, health care and increasingly public education (I heard on the CBC this morning that a charter - ie, private - school in Florida went into bankruptcy and the assets were seized from under the students). But I voted with the godless socialists this last election, so let the people protest. And expect more of the same.

Increasingly, the only two ways out of the mess since 2000 seem to be hyperinflation or the NAU. I don't know which is worse.